People & Places

BEST SPEED TRAP Minneapolis 2008 - The bridges over the Mississippi near 35W

Growing up, our hero was our elementary school's DARE officer. She taught us that only cowards smoke marijuana, and she presented us with a certificate after we'd learned to rat out anyone—parents included—if they exhibited the wrong kind of weakness. We're not sure what the DARE gang is up to these days, but we recognize something of their uncompromising, goal-oriented approach in another law enforcement endeavor: the Combined Twin Cities Speed Trap Initiative. The existence of this group, which coordinates the positions of scores of police cars along stretches of roadway with artificially low speed limits, cannot be independently verified. But we're pretty sure someone's got to be issuing marching orders from on high. Consider a small sampling of the evidence: the unyielding enforcement of the 25-mph speed limit along the freeway-like straightaway past the Ford Plant on St. Paul's river road, or the unrelenting watch over the misleadingly wide 30 mph stretch of Franklin Avenue near the light rail. And, lest you doubt a steady hand maximizing law enforcement fundraising opportunities, just try to avoid the stepped-up radaring on bridges over the Mississippi near 35W that have absorbed the freeway traffic.